“Will power and discipline alone can never fix your soul. Striving, pushing, and trying harder will not recover your life.” – Adele Calhoun My proposed path winds through a gate and disappears into the rolling grass fields of a local 35 acre mountain retreat. In the gushing fall breeze, I wrestle with flapping paper and find my place on the …
Come with me, back to my Midwest church girl roots with a visit to South Park Church in Park Ridge, Illinois. Loud music bounced wildly off the dark wood panels of a north side Chicago Irish pub. Thirty years after high school graduation, we milled around tall bar tables, leaned in close and shouted catch-up …
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” Brene’ Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection Craigsrisk I should have known. The picture on …
Umbilical 18 Days in December Those days bleed together in my mind the way the blood slowly pooled in her body after her heart stopped. I sit at my writing desk and sift through recent piles of wedding programs, Christmas cards, and funeral notes. I sort the collision of occasions like an upturned …
Pike National Forest, Colorado Every night outside my living room window, at the top of what the Ute Indians called the ‘Great Peak’ one lone light flickers. Across miles of foothills, above tundra and timberline, a single white light shines visibly in the distance. It hangs just above the highest point of the peak like a …
Originally posted October 2009. The Evidence of Music Guitar Picks in the Dryer The pile by the door was everything he needed. An amp, guitar cases, backpack, stage cases, and a computer. The morning sun wasn’t up. Wind and snow whistled by the door as it opened and closed and opened again. The pile shifted …